This invention relates to a new type of wind musical instrument that has the form of a conventional brass or woodwind instrument and which can be played by using the conventional fingering pattern of the wind instrument such as, for example, saxophone, trumpet, and so forth. More particularly, the invention is concerned with such wind instrument which, although it produces a tone other than that which would ordinarily be produced by the wind instrument it is designed to simulate, nevertheless produces the appropriate notes of the scale by exactly the same finger action to play it, while blowing breath thereinto through a mouthpiece.
Various kinds of musical instruments such as wind instruments, percussion instruments, stringed instruments, and so forth have been used since olden times. These various musical instruments are all unique in their configurations, method of playing, and musical tones, hence they are not able to produce a tone other than that said to be the characteristic of the musical instrument concerned.
However, there have emerged the so-called electric and electronic musical instruments such as the electronic organ, sometimes called an `electone`, etc. which have superceded the orthodox ideas with respect to such conventional musical instruments. By the emergence of this new type of electric and electronic musical instrument, it has become possible to produce various musical tones which resemble those of various musical instruments, or any other unique musical tones by electrically synthesizing sounds. However, as these electric and electronic musical instruments are generally played in the manner of a piano they cannot be played properly unless one can play the piano.
If various musical tones other than those peculiar to a particular wind instrument could be produced with the playing technique being the same as that of the wind instrument, it would contribute very much to expand possible areas of playing wind instruments, to further enrich the playing of such musical instruments, to increase the number of enthusiasts in music, and to diffuse and popularize such musical instruments per se. Conventionally formation of the musical scale in the wind instrument is governed only by the length of the tube constituting the wind instrument, so that only a given sound can be produced regardless of whether a single playing key or a plurality of playing keys are depressed at a time. In other words, in the wind instrument, the key and the sound producing member are not in a par relationship of 1 to 1 as in the key board of the piano; each of the keys is not provided with an independent sound producing member which corresponds to the individual key, on account of which the wind instruments have been constructed in such a way that no simple combination of playing keys has been capable of producing varieties of musical tones.
Applicant has already completed an electrically-operated wind instrument, wherein the abovementioned difficulty has been solved by the combination of a group of electric sound producing members, a group of change-over switches for selecting a predetermined one of a series of sound producing members, and scale operation keys of the wind instrument (vide: U.S. Pat. No. 3,897,708).